Weeks 8 and nine Movies movies movies

Week Nine Today we were shown around Oasis Post (one of Adelaide’s High End Post Production and Special Effects Facilities). A theme that seems to reoccur is that of versatility. Disc Edits have the capacity to master CDs and record voice overs, Mix Masters have the facilities to record to disc or cassette and at Oasis, the work ranges from adds to blockbuster films and their skills include the editing of visual and audio aspects of film. First of all, an overview, our guide gave us a bit of a run down on what they do and what equipment they have to do it. It seems that, like the film corporation, quite a number of medium sized films have past through the doors. Oasis have done well to acquire the best equipment and most efficient systems of communication and transfer We were sat down and shown a preview for the follow up to Wolf Creek, Rogue. As far as I was concerned the movie seemed indistinguishable in visual and audio quality from any other blockbuster. It is pleasing to see that film makers from America bring their work to Australia for the finishing touches and I guess the quality of Rogue is a fine indication of why (or maybe once again, like the film corp. it is more to do with subsidies and cheaper costs.) The next room we were shown was a neutral space for previewing work with. I cannot for the life of me recollect its specific purpose. There is a projector in this room that can ‘learn’ what the conditions of the room are and adjust its projections accordingly. For example, at Oasis, it ‘knew’ that 3 of the walls were black curtain and one was stone. Lastly, we were shown Tracks Adelaide, the incorporated facility for editing sound to video (courtesy of ProTools). The way Oasis is set up, information from a computer working on visuals can accessed by the Tracks Adelaide Computer (save time on transfer of info). Tracks Adelaide use a smaller version of the Icon desk and, while we were there, the engineer was working on a DVD for the Hilltop Hoods performance with a symphony orchestra (mostly for love). Week 8: FILM CORP and the crazy white room with no walls floor or ceiling Back out to the industrial wasteland west of the city this time to look around the Film Corporation. Oddly enough, this entity is government owned and funded. The Film Corp. is versatile, essentially, the building is a Space that people can rent out and use. There is a studio for foley work (the idea that foley is crucial is reinforced yet again.) The foley recording space is a comfortably messy area, there are several varieties of ground, a bicycle, misc. A couple of good room mics, a remote control system to hit play on Protools for those days when the techie has to work alone. While we were there, the sound guys was working on the Foley for some b grade Aussie kids show (I’ve never ceased to wonder where these shows get churned out from). There were some instances where the foley guy had to ‘invent’ a sound (i.e. a scene with a baby crawling around in it). If a filmmaker has hoped to just use the sound caught on location, they are dreaming. Should you ever want to take the show overseas, the actors’ voices will be dubbed over and all the other Foley will need doing then too, best to do it at the beginning. We didn’t get to look in one of the filming spaces but we did get to go into the room with the crazy non-walls. While we were there, they were white, often they are a particular shade of green which is immensely hard to come by. You may have heard the term ‘blue screen’, in Australia, you can’t get blue screen, the paint for it was on sale once at the very beginning and never again (hence the green screen). The highlight for me was most definitely attempting to walk to the corner of the room with no walls or corners, very trippy. Our next thing to look at was the studio for synching sound and film. The Film Corp uses a monster desk called a Harrison (the techie treated us to its equivalent to Vegas mode, an act that was met with a collective, appreciative ‘ooh’). The Harrison has 92 inputs but even that cannot save it from being made obsolete, already, the film corp. is looking to acquire an Icon desk. In short, the have to if they want to stay competitive. A lot of movies get made in Australia or New Zealand because it is cheap.